Help needed to re-enact Felix's world record jump

bainbridge · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:19

We have a paper parachute with a legoman (Felix Bumgardener the 2nd) which works really well indoors. The plan is to send him up tomorrow beneath a helium balloon and release him once a sufficient altitude has been reached. Conditions are looking good for a Sunday launch, but we still need to work out some sort of automatic mechanism to release him from the balloon. His chute will already be open, he'll be dangling beneath it.

Please can anyone help?

PS it needs to be made from ordinary household materials if possible.

geuben · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:21

The balloon will burst once it reaches a certain height. You might not need to release him.

bainbridge · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:27

geuben said:
The balloon will burst once it reaches a certain height. You might not need to release him.

What sort of height are we talking? We have a small pair of binoculars to track him, would he still be visible?

greywolf · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:30

When you say helium balloon you mean a normal party one or a large weather balloon?

One · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:32

You'll never see him again unless the balloon is tethered. They do these balloon things for charity, they end up in all over Europe. Real life Felix drifted over 20 miles away!

Mr. Peri Peri · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:32

Depending on the balloon you could be looking at 100,000ft plus (e.g. large latex weather balloon)

I am currently in the planning stage of putting a weather balloon up with a flight tracking system etc and camera/video gear.

How large is the balloon? I assume you are talking about a small party style foil balloon?

bainbridge · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:32

greywolf said:
When you say helium balloon you mean a normal party one or a large weather balloon?

Just a party balloon, bought from a carnival.

Megahurtz400 · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:33

Have him on a bit of string which acts as a fuse, slowly burns through until it breaks maybe?

Something Else · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:37

get a large balloon and send a small child up to push the legoman off

bainbridge · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:39

Megahurtz400 said:
Have him on a bit of string which acts as a fuse, slowly burns through until it breaks maybe?

Sounds promising. might be worth timing a smouldering cord with a weight tied on, made of varying numbers of strands.. Only problem is the paper parachute could ignite resulting in disaster.

RomanNose · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:50

Microcontroller + servo may work.
Just have a simple program that sleeps for however long you need, then sends the pwm signal to the servo at the angle you want.

godinman · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:53

Have a second balloon with one of you in it, go up alongside lego-felix and cut the string at the appropriate time.

Mr. Peri Peri · 20 Oct 2012 at 18:56

How much height are you hoping to get?

greywolf · 20 Oct 2012 at 19:01

Mr. Peri Peri said:
Depending on the balloon you could be looking at 100,000ft plus (e.g. large latex weather balloon)

I am currently in the planning stage of putting a weather balloon up with a flight tracking system etc and camera/video gear.

How large is the balloon? I assume you are talking about a small party style foil balloon?

I am also working on this, was last year and was ready to launch however, on the good flying days the launch site was not available, so missed out. Hope for next year now.

Have you gotten to the stage of getting a launch site and permission yet? As this was the difficult part for me.

sbi5ar · 20 Oct 2012 at 19:01

This has been done just so you now

Edit: I didn't mean this in a negative way. The video is on youtube and they might have a description as to how the did it

Mr. Peri Peri · 20 Oct 2012 at 19:06

greywolf said:
I am also working on this, was last year and was ready to launch however, on the good flying days the launch site was not available, so missed out. Hope for next year now.

Have you gotten to the stage of getting a launch site and permission yet? As this was the difficult part for me.

Have briefly looked in to this but mainly working on the design of the flight system at the moment and which direction to take it. We are considering ways to guide the payload on the way back down so retrieval will be much easier.

I know that there is a site in Cambridgeshire I think it is and they have blanket permission for balloon launches, so you do not need to apply for each individual launch.

When you were trying to get permission were you going for specific days? I think you can request permission over a time period so you should be able to pick a good day within that window.

Flare · 20 Oct 2012 at 19:07

I'll just leave this here...

PistolPete · 20 Oct 2012 at 19:24

Ask these guys:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/15/mini_baumgartner/

greywolf · 20 Oct 2012 at 19:34

Mr. Peri Peri said:
Have briefly looked in to this but mainly working on the design of the flight system at the moment and which direction to take it. We are considering ways to guide the payload on the way back down so retrieval will be much easier.

I know that there is a site in Cambridgeshire I think it is and they have blanket permission for balloon launches, so you do not need to apply for each individual launch.

When you were trying to get permission were you going for specific days? I think you can request permission over a time period so you should be able to pick a good day within that window.

Yeah it was the cambridge site I was going to use. However, as it was my first launch from there one of the guys wanted to be there too. But could not make days that I could, plus bad weather days.

Might look into getting permission for a launch site myself for next time. Think you have to specify a certain time frame window when doing that.

King Damager · 20 Oct 2012 at 19:41

You need permission to launch helium balloons? What happens when kids accidentally let go of them when walking through the park...

kd